(Jan 26, 1932—2330 hrs June 14, 2013)
Recipes /
Uncle Don's Bean Dish
When I was younger, my Uncle Don was in the habit of visiting us every Christmas, as he was for many years a bachelor and had a close relationship with my mother, his sister. I remember seeing his Bible with him when he stayed with us, and every morning when he was visiting and we were very young, we would climb into bed with him before he got up in the morning (`we' being my sister Anne, my brother Rob, and me). He would rub his beard on our faces, it was very bristly at one day's growth. He also loved to squeeze our legs just above the knee, in that ticklishly painful way that somehow endeared him to us. Every time he visited, it was his custom to prepare for us a meal, and for this purpose he would pay a visit to the local grocery store and purchase various canned goods, namely beans, and baby mushrooms and baby corn, baby onions, or whatever he thought would taste good in his bean dish, which ultimately became known as ``Uncle Don's Bean Dish''.
This recipe is simple and delicious and can be made with canned beans, provided that they don't contain anything different from the ingredients in this recipe. It tastes great, and may be reheated and eaten for several days, tending to taste better every day.
When developing this recipe from scratch, I found that the basic ingredients were tomatoes and beans, something to sweeten the tomatoes, and some natural salt to taste. You may also add mushrooms, fresh or canned, and/or baby corn which I have only seen in a can. Buying prepared beans is risky with this dish because they often add too many ingredients which can alter the flavour and spoil the mix. If you buy prepared beans, and by that I mean baked beans intended to be eaten as is, be sure that you have tried them before for this purpose. Onions are also optional.
Various beans are welcome in this recipe, and include lima beans, which Uncle Don always included, red kidney beans (also a staple in this dish), and the kind of beans that you always see baked in a crockpot, commonly called navy beans. No bay leaf is used, and canned whole tomatoes are used along with some type of natural sugar or maple syrup. No additional spices are needed, and salt is very minimal. Dry beans need to be soaked overnight and cooked in plain water before making this recipe, and when they are soft enough to eat you can add the other canned ingredients, whether beans or not. The mixture of beans is not really very critical, although we traditionally use fewer of the lima beans are more of the navy (socalled `baked') beans, and nearly as many kidney beans. The recipe can be easily doubled or tripled in a large pot. If you really love lima beans, you can increase their proportion accordingly, and the same goes for the kidney beans. It's hard to go wrong with this recipe, but keep it simple is good advice. It's especially great for bachelors and people who don't have a lot of time to prepare food.
Thanks to Erin at the visitation this evening, I now remember that Uncle Don always put hamburger meat in his bean dish, although it has become optional for me at this point. I'm guessing that he used a pound of meat, but his recipe was twice as large in every respect as the one I am showing here, so that this recipe only calls for ½ pound of hamburger.
Double the recipe to serve a family of four children plus three adults for several days.
A word of warning: try not to buy cans with dents in them.
